State Rep. Joe Carr announces he will challenge U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander in next year's Republican primary at a press conference in Murfreesboro on Aug. 20, 2013.

Written by

Joey Garrison
| The Tennessean

Joe Carr has secured the endorsement of the chief opposition group hoping to unseat U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, but the backing of Tennessee tea party activists is far from unanimous.

Beat Lamar, a political action committee that recently concluded a series of statewide forums to find a 2014 tea party challenger to Alexander, announced Monday that it has endorsed Carr, a conservative Republican state representative from Lascassas who announced his candidacy on the eve of candidate "vetting sessions" some tea party leaders had organized to settle on a single challenger.